Talk:Saturated fat: Difference between revisions

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Earlier comment on lack of neutrality [1]. The chart also seems to have inconsistent criteria changing focus with each study generally to focus on the most damning material. Criticism of current dietary recommendations from within medical establishment not mentioned.

More recent view:

• Sygo, Jennifer. (June 16, 2011). It's high time to end the war on dietary fats. Ottawa Citizen. Postmedia News.

The above interprets

• Zelman Kathleen, Willett Walter C., Kuller Lewis H., Mozaffarian Dariush, Lichtenstein Alice H. (2011). "The Great Fat Debate". Journal of the American Dietetic Association. 111 (5): 655–677.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link).

The news article is worthless as it's not a MEDRS. The overall conclusion of the Great Fat Debate articles (which represents dieticians, and can't claim to be the be-all and end-all of the scientific consensus) can be found in the summary of agreements in the first article of the set. The conclusion was not "saturated fat is healthy", it was "substituting refined carbohydrates for saturated fat may nulify the health benefits of reducing saturated fat while substituting mono and poly unsaturated fats is indeed healthy". There is one statement about how saturated fat might not be as bad for you as thought, but M/PUF are actually good for you. It also contains statements like:

The agreements from the debates (and this was merely a transcripted debate, it was not a scientific consensus statement) were:

The advice to dieticians was:

The "Great Fat Debate" articles are not a reason to tag the article because a) it's not a comprehensive scientific consensus statemenet and b) it's not clearly stating that saturated fats are good for you - at best it states that saturated fats may not be as bad as they said in the past. The NPOV talk page section linked to contains not a single source - and sources determine weight, not editor opinion. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 14:49, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From the text of this article can one tell in what order from least to most harmful to list the following: butyric acid, lauric acid, myristic acid, palmitic acid, stearic acid, trans fat, omega 6 fatty acids, carbohydrates, and omega 3 fatty acids? How about eggs vs. milk vs. butter vs. dark chocolate vs. coconut oil vs. meat fat vs. fish oil vs. white bread? I don't think so, which is surprising since it spends an inordinate amount of space going over the dietary implications. There is nothing here about the changing perception towards saturated fats over the years. There is little here saying what the result on obesity or CVD has been with society changing its intake of saturated fats or what has been taken in its place and the implications of that change. The focus of this article is on dietary propaganda— compare it with something like the article on protein and the difference is obvious—and within its focus it is not neutral, compare with the article on sugar. Lambanog (talk) 16:20, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a clear scientific consensus that any one is better or worse than the others? You appear to be asking this article to give the definitive answers to "what is a healthy diet" when the answer is clearly still being researched and subject to revision, not to mention being essentially irrelevant (see healthy diet, fat is only one component as a low carbohydrate or low protein diet is also unhealthy; should we discuss which is less healthy in this article? I would say no). Saturated fats used to be considered bad for your health; the current consensus according to the article above is that it's clearly now seen as less settled but reduced consumption is still warranted, so why would we even try to give definitive answers? And again, neutrality is demonstrated through sources, not asserted by editors - where are the articles that substantiate your points? The article can't be neutral because it doesn't adhere to your arbitrary standard, you need to demonstrate that there are ideas missing from the article through reference to sources.

Also, what do omega fatty acids, carbohydrates, eggs and white bread have to do with the main article on saturated fats? Comparisons to protein and sugar are clearly inappropriate, particularly for the former - this is the saturated fat article, which would be akin to the article on fructose, not sugar. Both sugar and fats are macronutrients who primarily act as fuels; "protein" is a basic chemical concept that undertakes essentially every biological function on the planet and are structurally far, far more complex. Comparing fat to protein is like comparing gasoline to metal; one is a fuel, with its own complications. The other essentially undergirds the entire acquisition, use and processing of the other, in addition to a thousand other tasks, making a difference between even fat and protein a bad comparison, let alone between a subtype of fat with a main article. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 18:54, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems you misapprehend (compare to the article protein and the article sugar). In any event if that is your stand, then would you support the removal of the comparisons to polyunsaturated fat? The current portrayal is akin to a B student being accused of being the most horrible student ever because there happens to be an A student. A comparison to carbohydrates and trans fat would be appropriate because they were substituted for saturated fat. As for proteins having functions, saturated fat also has functions in the body aside from being fuel—but then again that simply highlights how unsatisfactory this article is since it doesn't mention them. Lambanog (talk) 19:34, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Protein and sugar, both as articles and as biological molecules, are not comparable to saturated fats. The current mainstream scholarly consensus is that saturated fat is a health risk, as verifiable by numerous citations to health and dietary organizations. There are journal articles that state that saturated fat may be less harmful than previously thought. There is heavy emphasis that this is a tentative conclusion. Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth, and does not predict the future or promote a viewpoint. If the scholarly consensus is that saturated fats are a health risk, this is what we report. If the scholarly consensus changes, we document that change after it happens.

If the article lacks information, that does not mean it is not neutral. It simply means it needs expansion. Please feel free to include the functions of saturated fats in the body aside from as a mere fuel. "Neutral" means "fairly represents all significant opinions without promoting any one side". This article does that - numerous citations to respected scientific organizations that state saturated fats are considered a health risk. Further, in the cardiovascular disease section, it states "While many studies have found that including polyunsaturated fats in the diet in place of saturated fats produces more beneficial CVD outcomes, the effects of substituting monounsaturated fats or carbohydrates are unclear" which is the minority opinion that Zelman expresses. If anything, it is inappropriately "pro" saturated fat since the Zelman article doesn't portray it as healthy and takes pains to portray it as a known risk for at least markers of cardiovascular disease. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 19:56, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are wrong, Wikipedia does not have to wait until after everyone agrees, it can report on a current controversy and state both sides. Also there is nothing saying the degree of health risk should be obscured. Perhaps cars should be outfitted with an automatic message saying driving heightens your chances of being in an accident, there are probably scientific statistics to back that up, but unless really significant at some point it becomes ridiculous. The mechanism of why and how saturated fats are supposedly bad isn't even clearly explained in this article. Instead it is the same mantra: this organizations says it's bad over and over again. Compare this article to the one on smoking—a risk factor that has has far more pronounced negative effects—one might be forgiven for thinking saturated fats will kill you outright instead of being only vaguely and tentatively associated with CVD incidence. Of the large studies conducted about the foods generally associated with saturated fats I cannot think of a recent instance where they have not been cleared. Eggs are healthy again—and so is chocolate! The record of the health advice and its consequences should be included. The rate of saturated fat intake has fallen; people are as obese as ever and having as many CVD episodes as ever. As for what you portray as the minority position, it may well be that carbohydrates are now considered more dangerous than saturated fats, if you know of any studies that say otherwise feel free to share. Lambanog (talk) 20:36, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly the minority opinion should be represented as such. So what are your sources justifying that there is a missing minority viewpoint? And, naturally, not primary sources as that would be inappropriate - what reliable, secondary sources do you have to justify a missing minority viewpoint? Smoking isn't an appropriate comparison since the risk of smoking is well-established and recognized world-wide.

Sources matter. Opinions do not. Where are your sources? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 22:30, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source for what? Saturated fats vs. carbohydrates? Look here, here, and here [Link fixed]. Now do you have sources of your own to contradict them? Produce them.

Smoking isn't an appropriate comparison because its risk are well-established? So you are admitting that the risks associated with saturated fats aren't? Then in comparison with the the smoking article this article's warnings towards its subject are overblown. Lambanog (talk) 04:53, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Conclusion of Jakobsen et al:

This is a conclusion about carbohydrates.

Accurso et al is also about replacing saturated fats with carbohydrates.

This is a webpage published by the Nutrition and Metabolism Society, their journal does not appear to be pubmed indexed. This doesn't appear to be a WP:MEDRS. Struck my comment, now commenting on your updated link [2]. Hu states in his conclusion "Clearly, diets high in either saturated fats or refined carbohydrates are not suitable for IHD prevention. However, refined carbohydrates are likely to cause even greater metabolic damage than saturated fat in a predominantly sedentary and overweight population. Although intake of saturated fat should remain at a relatively low amount and partially hydrogenated fats should be eliminated, a singular focus on reduction of total and saturated fat can be counterproductive because dietary fat is typically replaced by refined carbohydrate, as has been seen over the past several decades. In this era of widespread obesity and insulin resistance, the time has come to shift the focus of the diet-heart paradigm away from restricted fat intake and toward reduced consumption of refined carbohydrates." Once again, the author is not saying "saturated fat is healthy", the focus is on carbohydrate substitution.

The first two articles merely underscore points already summarized in the article - the risks of saturated fat are less clear than once thought, and replacing SF with carbohydrates doesn't change the risk while UFA does. How does this support the {{NPOV}} tag?

I've been supporting, and pointing out, that the risks of SFA are less certain than they were before. That's not the same thing as "SFA now considered health food". The emphasis and agreement of the medical community is that SFA is still something to be replaced with UFA - not that SFA carries zero risks or is in fact cardioprotective. Again, you have failed to justify an NPOV tag since the page already gives attention to the minority opinion that SFA may not be as risky as once thought. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 11:09, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well the site where Accurso et al. is hosted claims an impact factor of 2.35 and Google lists Accurso et al. as being cited 51 times. Also what are you talking about it not being indexed on Pubmed? There it is. Lambanog (talk) 14:34, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The journal page says it's not indexed, but that could be an error or something else weird; I've left a question at the RSN. If you're not citing the webpage I'm not concerned about it.

I'm not saying Accurso et al. isn't a reliable source. I'm saying it doesn't support your assertion that there's a neutrality problem with the page because the page already incorporates the article's point about saturated fats. The section titled "The role of saturated fat" states "In our view, inconsistencies in the experimental results with dietary saturated fat arise from a failure to distinguish between replacement by unsaturated fat or by carbohydrate. In the former case, there is usually improvement in CVD risk or outcome (although it is not excluded that this is due to the effect of the unsaturated fat rather than reduction in the risk from the saturated fat). Replacement of saturated fat with carbohydrate, however, is almost always deleterious". UFA improves health, while replacing SF with carbohydrates worsens (or at least doesn't change overall risk) - the "sea change" in opinion seems to be not "saturated fat is health neutral or good for you", it's "refined carbohydrates are as bad for you as saturated fats". Again, this is already in the article, in the section on cardiovascular disease. Based on these sources, I will expand the point but this still doesn't support the NPOV tag as it is a relatively minor point that needs expansion. Nobody is arguing for exclusion. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:25, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lambanog, what material, cited to what WP:MEDRS compliant source, with special attention to due weight given the consensus in the medical community, are you wanting to add or remove from the article? It might be more productive to actually edit the article rather than continually tagging articles you personally disagree with. Yobol (talk) 18:38, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Particularly given a) I've integrated the sources you've presented into the article (Hu and Accurso; Zelman/Great Fat Debate) b) the {{POV}} template is not meant to be a badge of shame to "warn" readers and c) I've continually reviewed your suggestions on the talk page and addressed them either through adding to the main page, or commenting on why they are, on a policy or source basis, not appropriate. Per WP:UNDUE, "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public." We have to demonstrate that scholars consider the saturated fat = healthy hypothesis is a serious contender, not that editors do. And as I've said repeatedly, WP:CRYSTAL and WP:SOAP clearly indicate that until the scholarly consensus changes, wikipedia should not. We follow opinion, we do not lead it. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 18:48, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This article takes only one perspective: a medical propaganda perspective and even in that perspective it is not neutral; the focus on saturated fats vs. unsaturated fats is unnatural. There is no detailed comparison with other macronutrients except to portray saturated fats in the worst possible light. There is no mention of the role saturated fats play in the body. There is no history. I've already tried to address my concerns a little, but there's so much bias in the article at present it will take significantly more changes to bring it up to shape. You are of course free to make improvements to reduce the POV issues yourself. Lambanog (talk) 18:57, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]